Protests on, Modi media mania manifests, citizen journalists respond

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George Orwell’s 1984 has a Big Brother perniciously watching all citizens. In India, he still continues, with a pliant media and drones. However, the Small Brother is catching up and the Big Brother has no clue how to handle. The Small Brother -the one-man, one smartphone citizen journalist has self-reported his efforts, splashed it all around the globe through the internet and smashed diabolism of the Modi-media.

THE NEO-BIG BROTHER -INDIAN PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI, revelling in his pride and invincibility syndrome, ignored the Small Brother. Now, with the Grace of God and no other human or social explanation, a revolution is unfolding on the outskirts of Delhi.

For months together, in Punjab and elsewhere, the Small Brothers, apart from ground protests, with his smartphone, used social media platforms pleading the government to listen to them and annul the anti-people farm laws. The Modi media not only ignored them but even branded them with different nomenclatures.

While Modi media mania manifests, the citizen journalist and the social media journalist has effectively snatched space, eyeballs and attention away from the euphemistically-called mainstream media.

The Farmers Morcha in Delhi has debunked Modism and its media mongering. The fourth pillar of state -media has fallen on the roadside in India. Despite pressures, the power of social media cannot be undermined. If the well-oiled IT cell of the BJP can change peoples’ thinking, so can everybody else. The cyber battle is on.

A vast section of the print and satellite media is happily sitting in the lap of the government of India buying all logic of the government and religiously following instructions and slanted news emanating from the PMO. This section of the media is now popularly known as the Godi-media -the media enjoying the warmth of the lap of the Narendra Modi government because of its money power and political backing. From simple reporting to editorialising, Godi-media is precisely the Modi-media.

Social media and web channels have emerged as the alternative media but even here the ultra-nationalistic fervour of some is attempting to take over free space. The state machinery also continues to pressurize social media platforms into submission, under one pretext or the other.

Led by the farmers, the people of Punjab, joined by the people of Haryana, while marching to Delhi, not only surpassed the inhuman and barbaric barricades and threw them on the wayside, they effectively sidelined that section of the media which has become the propaganda arm of the Modi government, surpassing even Hitler’s Goebelles propaganda theorems.

The Modi establishment and the Modi media’s days are numbered.

The Farmers Morcha in Delhi has debunked Modism and its media mongering. The fourth pillar of state -media has fallen on the roadside in India. Despite pressures, the power of social media cannot be undermined. If the well-oiled IT cell of the BJP can change peoples’ thinking, so can everybody else. The cyber battle is on.

Godi Media

Time and again, ace senior journalist and anchor Ravish Kumar of NDTV has been saying that the best service that one can do to oneself in these trying times is to stop watching the Godi-media – a term coined by him. The farmers of Punjab have shown the way. The reporters of Republic, Zee News, Aaj Tak, ABVP News cannot cover the Farmers Morcha. Farmers -young and old, aware of their slant, have simply refused to talk to them. They have put up a human chain disallowing this media to interview them.

With all its pitfalls and weaknesses, this is the beginning of a new era of the power of citizen journalism. On the borders of Delhi, the emotions expressed by elderly farmers, weeping young ladies from across India severely pained by the attack on farmers, the bold slogans and company of the children of Punjab has the potential to usher in a revolution for understanding politics and political games.

The Citizen Journalist will prevail. The phenomenon of People’s power has been unleashed. The Modi establishment and the Modi media’s days are numbered.

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